Hit by a bus! Insurance procedures?

peckerhead

Rather than tag on to this thread I thought I'd ask here about what outcome to expect in the following scenario...

Daughter sitting in her parked car in town, in the last space before a bus stop (but perfectly within her parking space, not sticking out into the road or into the bus stop or anything) when a bus pulled in to the bus stop, misjudged it badly, and walloped the front driver's side wing of her car. Bus driver put his hands up, rang the depot, they sent out an inspector with a clipboard and camera who noted/photographed all the details and gave DD a phone no. in CIE. No argument about liability, etc. So far so good...

Daughter brings the car to the local (insurance-approved) repair shop and gets a quote for €2,500, which she duly forwards on to CIE and they send out their assessor, who examines the car again and takes it for a drive and says he'll be in touch.

Now, apart from some fairly serious damage to the body work, the car's steering has been damaged and the repairs place say the the suspension on the front RH side is also damaged. The thing is still just about driveable, with a mad wobbling motion, but not in any sense roadworthy or safe. I've looked at the damage report and the bones of €2,000/€2,500 is easily justified, if you were to actually do all the work. The wobble is not just down to wheel alignment or tracking, the wheel itself is damaged too, which will give you an idea of how hard she was hit side on (she said the car was shoved up against the kerb by the impact).

However — the car is a 00 Micra and was bought (only a fortnight previously! ) for €1,200. So it's obviously not economical to repair. Pity, because it was a sweet little thing — spotless, low mileage, one lady owner, f.s.h. etc.

What can she expect, and how much can she negotiate? I understand the usual drill in these situations is that the insurance company will offer the value of the car (book value or price paid?) and take the car away to salvage what they can.

Has she any say in this? She's not looking to take advantage of the situation , but if they come and say "right, prove you paid €1,200, and we'll give you €1,100" — or even the full €1,200 — that's not really what I'd call breaking even from her point of view. She's had no car for a fortnight (so two weeks' insurance and tax wasted also), a serious amount of inconvenience and of time wasted phoning and phoning and chasing down some useless fecker in CIE to do their job.

Anyone been there/have any tips to offer? Should she ring them again, set a reasonable deadline for their offer and then, if there's any shïte out of them, just say she's handing it over to a lawyer?

TIA

readytosnap

no expert but i am fairly sure that if it is an economical write off, then the insurance will only pay the book value and i doubt that will be anywhere near 1200 :mad:
maybe a lawyer could get monies for the lost insurance etc but that would be feck all, only if she was injured would a lawyer be a worthwhile avenue imo.
no doubt tomorrow will bring greater advice from others.
looks to me like your daughter is on a loser here through no fault of her own.

areyawell

Ugh, looks like she'll only get the value of the car which is a joke. If a was 2012 beamer and the damage was 10,000 grand the insurance company would have to pay. Insurance companies are a joke.

Pkiernan

Dublin Bus, afaik, is self insured.

There is some hope you can hold out for cost of repairs.

Was your daughter injured?

Henry Ford III

If the car cost €1200 and the repair bill is €2500 it's clearly a w/o economically.

I can't see how anyone could expect any more than it's cost/value. Insurance claims aren't supposed to be profitable. They merely attempt to put the claimant back in their position before the claim.

inforfun

The car might be worth a million to your daughter, unfortunately the real value of the car is what she will get paid, €1200.

Colonel Sanders

areyawell wrote: »

Ugh, looks like she'll only get the value of the car which is a joke. If a was 2012 beamer and the damage was 10,000 grand the insurance company would have to pay. Insurance companies are a joke.

What?

oldyouth

She will get the market value of the car plus reasonable expenses incurred such as towing and car hire (approx 2 weeks) If you want to include the cost of the phone calls, go for it

keithclancy

peckerhead wrote: »

Has she any say in this? She's not looking to take advantage of the situation , but if they come and say "right, prove you paid €1,200, and we'll give you €1,100" — or even the full €1,200 — that's not really what I'd call breaking even from her point of view. She's had no car for a fortnight (so two weeks' insurance and tax wasted also), a serious amount of inconvenience and of time wasted phoning and phoning and chasing down some useless fecker in CIE to do their job.

Just keep any receipts for costs incurred of the 2 weeks. You can't really compensate inconvenience as its totally subjective.

E.G.
Person A: Meh, no big deal, had to get the bus.
Person B: OMFG I had to get the bus, it was like torture ... I had to wait for 20 minutes for it and sit next to someone in a tracksuit.

Payout should put her in a state she was in before the accident.

peckerhead

keithclancy wrote: »

Payout should put her in a state she was in before the accident.

Thanks for all the pointers. This is pretty much the way I feel about it. I'll wait and see if they make a reasonable offer, and also how long they intend to make her wait. For the last two weeks, just by chance, it wasn't a huge inconvenience to her to be without the car (maybe to me, having to give her lifts everywhere!) — but she starts work next week and I'm not going to able to keep doing that. I've nothing but contempt for compo-chasers and I'll make the point that all she is looking for is what kc said above. She needs her/a car back on the road quickly and is not prepared to take a hit of several hundred euro for an incident that would have a lot of people running to their doctor with headaches and neck pain.

If they start dicking her about with "book value" figures that are way off the mark — I've had this before with insurance companies, despite having invoices — I'll tell them we'll take it to court and they can double the payout straight off for legal costs alone.

Henry Ford III

peckerhead wrote: »

...I've had this before with insurance companies, despite having invoices...

Remember that what you paid and what the car was worth may be two different amounts.

Atomic Pineapple

peckerhead wrote: »

Thanks for all the pointers. This is pretty much the way I feel about it. I'll wait and see if they make a reasonable offer, and also how long they intend to make her wait. For the last two weeks, just by chance, it wasn't a huge inconvenience to her to be without the car (maybe to me, having to give her lifts everywhere!) — but she starts work next week and I'm not going to able to keep doing that.

Why hasn't she requested a replacement car while waiting for the claim to be settled?

peckerhead

Just got word back; they're offering her €1,000 less €110 salvage, plus 15 x €40/day "loss of use", i.e. €1,490. Seems fair enough and, I'd wager, a lot better than what an insurance company would have agreed to.

Now ye know why public transport is so dear in this country... :pac:

keithclancy

peckerhead wrote: »

Just got word back; they're offering her €1,000 less €110 salvage, plus 15 x €40/day "loss of use", i.e. €1,490. Seems fair enough and, I'd wager, a lot better than what an insurance company would have agreed to.

Now ye know why public transport is so dear in this country... :pac:

Sure now you know your time is worth about 20 euros a day :pac:

Mar4ix

peckerhead wrote: »

Just got word back; they're offering her €1,000 less €110 salvage, plus 15 x €40/day "loss of use", i.e. €1,490. Seems fair enough and, I'd wager, a lot better than what an insurance company would have agreed to.

Now ye know why public transport is so dear in this country... :pac:

And what goin happen with car. They takin away or yous may still have ?

Mar4ix

15x40 = 600 +200 + scrap value 110 = 910 .... or I am wrong .... it can't be 1450 ....

I did double check with calculator ...

EDIT : or you mean, they offer 1000 for the car, + 110 salvage, + 600 quid ?

Guy:Incognito

Mar4ix wrote: »

15x40 = 600 +200 + scrap value 110 = 910 .... or I am wrong .... it can't be 1450 ....

I did double check with calculator ...

Where is the 200 coming from?

It's 1000 - 110 = 890 + 15 * 40 = 1490

Atomic Pineapple

Mar4ix wrote: »

15x40 = 600 +200 + scrap value 110 = 910 .... or I am wrong .... it can't be 1450 ....

I did double check with calculator ...

EDIT : or you mean, they offer 1000 for the car, + 110 salvage, + 600 quid ?

(1000 + 600) - 110 = 1490

Mar4ix

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Where is the 200 coming from?

It's 1000 - 110 = 890 + 15 * 40 = 1490

alright, i misunderstand. he said offer 1000 euro less ... if his car cost 1200, so 1200 -1000 = 200.

Guy:Incognito

Mar4ix wrote: »

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Where is the 200 coming from?

It's 1000 - 110 = 890 + 15 * 40 = 1490

alright, i misunderstand. he said offer 1000 euro less ... if his car cost 1200, so 1200 -1000 = 200.

Less = minus.

Mar4ix

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Less = minus.

Alright, i use "-" with other numbers.

Id take that car for 150, would fix and drive myself

subway

I'm confused now.

why are they taking salvage for the car?
are you taking it back? if BV is 1000, they give you 890 and the salvage yard give you 110, rather than them giving you 1000 and the salvage giving them 110.
or you get 890 and keep the car, i suppose.

peckerhead

Yep, she keeps the car. €110 is presumably what they reckon she can get for it in its damaged condition, so they deduct that from the €1,000.

In reality, she'll be quids in, because she won't go replacing with all new parts as per the €2,500 quote. But depending on the damage to the steering, it probably will still take the bones of €500 or €600 to put right, even on the cheap, and without bothering with the cosmetic stuff. And the resale value is obviously lowered. We may still scrap it, but I think probably not 'cause it's a grand little runner for a car that old, and I couldn't be arsed looking for another <€1,000 Micra.

If we'd insisted on a rental replacement, that would have cost pretty close to €40/day, so the other €600 I don't feel a bit guilty about.

L1011

Pkiernan wrote: »

Dublin Bus, afaik, is self insured.

They are.

There is no insurer to deal with here - Dublin Bus will be paying themselves. They are INCREDIBLY SLOW to deal with, from (second-hand - it was my mother that got smashed into) experience.

mb1725

MYOB wrote: »

They are.

There is no insurer to deal with here - Dublin Bus will be paying themselves. They are INCREDIBLY SLOW to deal with, from (second-hand - it was my mother that got smashed into) experience.

+1 on that. CIE used to be very slow to settle any damages and apparently things haven't changed. Keep channel of communication open with whoever you are dealing with and keep notes of all conversations, meetings etc.

peckerhead

Will do. The guy on the phone said he'd sign off on it today and that a cheque would issue within 2-3 weeks, so we'll see, I guess...

Mar4ix

peckerhead wrote: »

Will do. The guy on the phone said he'd sign off on it today and that a cheque would issue within 2-3 weeks, so we'll see, I guess...

hmmmmm 2-3 weeks your daughter still without car.... you shall charge 40 euro a day, until you'll get a cheque :pac: ......

_Kaiser_

peckerhead wrote: »

Yep, she keeps the car. €110 is presumably what they reckon she can get for it in its damaged condition, so they deduct that from the €1,000.

In reality, she'll be quids in, because she won't go replacing with all new parts as per the €2,500 quote. But depending on the damage to the steering, it probably will still take the bones of €500 or €600 to put right, even on the cheap, and without bothering with the cosmetic stuff. And the resale value is obviously lowered. We may still scrap it, but I think probably not 'cause it's a grand little runner for a car that old, and I couldn't be arsed looking for another <€1,000 Micra.

If we'd insisted on a rental replacement, that would have cost pretty close to €40/day, so the other €600 I don't feel a bit guilty about.

To be honest, I'd be looking for another Micra/car in the up-to-€1500 range so.

Even if you get it fixed, it'll probably be never quite "right" if the damage was that bad given the age of the car as well.

For that money though she might get something better again

Just my 2c anyway